LITMIR.BIZ

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said. “The sentimental approach.”

      “You were sixteen years old.”

      Fifteen. Guidry just off the turnip truck from Ascension Parish, Louisiana, and tumbling around the Faubourg Marigny. Living hand to mouth, stealing cans of pork and beans off the shelves of the A&P. Mackey saw promise in him and gave Guidry his first real job. Every morning for a year, Guidry had picked up the cut from the girls on St. Peter and hurried it over to Snake Gonzalez, the legendary pimp. Five dollars a day and the quick end to any romantic notions Guidry might have still had about the human species.

      “Please, Frankie,” Mackey said.

      “What do you want?”

      “Talk to Seraphine. Get the lay of the land for me. Maybe I’m crazy.”

      “What happened? Never mind. I don’t care.” Guidry wasn’t interested in the details of Mackey’s predicament. He was only interested in the details of his predicament, the one that Mackey had just created for him.

      “You remember about a year ago,” Mackey said, “when I went out to ’Frisco to talk to a guy about that thing with the judge. Carlos called it all off, you remember, but—”

      “Stop,” Guidry said. “I don’t care. Damn it, Mack.”

      “I’m sorry, Frankie. You’re the only one I can trust. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

      Mackey waited. Guidry tugged the knot of his tie loose. What was life but this? A series of rapid calculations: the shifting of weights, the balancing of scales. The only poor decision was a decision you allowed someone else to make for you.

      “All right, all right,” Guidry said. “But I can’t put a word in for you, Mack. It’s my hide then, too. You understand that?”

      “I understand,” Mackey said. “Just find out if I need to blow town. I’ll blow tonight.”

      “Stay put till you hear from me.”

      “I’m over on Frenchmen Street, at Darlene Monette’s place. Come by afterward. Don’t leave a message.”

      “Darlene Monette?”

      “She owes me one,” Mackey said. He watched Guidry with those hooded eyes. Begging. Telling Guidry, You owe me one.

      “Stay put until you hear from me,” Guidry said.

      “Thank you, Frankie.”

      Guidry called Seraphine from a pay phone in the lobby. She didn’t answer at home, so he tried Carlos’s private office out on Airline Highway in Metairie. How many people had that number? It couldn’t have been more than a dozen. Look at me now, Ma!

      “Are we not still meeting Friday, mon cher?” Seraphine said.

      “We are,” Guidry said. “Can’t a fella just call to shoot the breeze?”

      “My favorite pastime.”

      “I caught a rumor that Uncle Carlos is looking for a penny he dropped. Our friend Mackey. Or do I have that wrong?”

      Guidry heard a silky rustle. When Seraphine stretched, she arched her back like a cat. He heard the tink of a single ice cube in a glass.

      “You don’t have that wrong,” she said.

      Goddamn it. So Mackey’s fears were not unfounded. Carlos wanted him dead.

      “Are you still there, mon cher?”

      Goddamn it. Mackey had cooked Guidry dinner a thousand times. He’d introduced Guidry to the Marcello brothers. He’d vouched for Guidry when no one else in the world knew that Guidry existed.

      But all that was yesterday. Guidry cared only about today, about tomorrow.

      “Tell Carlos to have a look on Frenchmen Street,” Guidry said. “There’s a house with green shutters on the corner of Rampart. Darlene Monette’s place. Top floor, the flat in back.”

      “Thank you, mon cher,” Seraphine said.

      Guidry strolled back to the Carousel. The redhead had waited for him. He watched her for a minute from the doorway. Yea or nay, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? He liked how she’d started to wilt a bit, her Cleopatra eyeliner blurring and the flip in her hair going flat. She shook off a mope who tried to make time with her and ran a finger along the rim of her empty highball glass. Deciding to give Guidry five more minutes, that was it, no more, and this time she meant it.

      He wished that it had played out differently with Mackey. He wished that Seraphine had said, You’ve heard wrong, mon cher, Carlos has no quarrel with Mackey. But now all Guidry could do was shrug. Weights and measures, simple arithmetic. Someone might have seen him with Mackey tonight. Guidry couldn’t risk it. Why would he want to?

      He took the redhead back to his place. He lived fifteen floors above Canal Street, in a modern high-rise that was a sleek spike of steel and concrete, sealed off and cooled from the inside out. In the summer, when the rest of the city sweltered, Guidry didn’t break a sweat.

      “Ooh,” the redhead said, “I dig it.”

      The floor-to-ceiling view, the black leather sofa, the glass-and-chromium bar cart, the expensive hi-fi. She positioned herself by the window, a hand on her hip, weight on one leg to show off her curves, glancing over her shoulder the way she’d seen the models in magazines do it.

      “I’m wild to live high up like this someday,” she said. “All the lights. All the stars. It’s like being in a rocket ship.”

      Guidry didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, that he intended to have a conversation, so he pushed her up against the window. The glass flexed and the stars shimmied. He kissed her. The neck, the tender joint between her jaw and ear. She smelled like a cigarette butt floating in a puddle of Lanvin perfume.

      Her fingers raked his hair. He grabbed her hand and pinned it behind her. With his other hand, he reached up under her skirt.

      “Oh,” she said.

      Satin panties. He left them on her for now and lightly, lightly traced the contours beneath, two fingers gliding over every subtle swell and crease. At the same time kissing her neck harder, letting her feel his teeth.

      “Oh.” She meant it this time.

      He pushed the elastic band out of the way and slid his fingers inside her. In and out, the pad of his thumb on her clit, searching for the rhythm she liked, the right amount of pressure. When he felt her breathing shift, her hips rotate, he eased off. The muscles in her neck tightened with surprise. He waited for a few seconds and then started again. Her relief was a shiver of electricity running through her body. When he eased off a second time, she gasped like she’d been kicked.

      “Don’t stop,” she said.

      He leaned back so he could look at her. Her eyes were glazed, her face a smear of bliss and need. “Say please.”

      “Please,” she said.

      “Say pretty please.”

       “Please.”

      He finished her. Every woman came in a different way. Eyes slitted or chin thrust out, lips parted or nostrils flared, a sigh or a snarl. Always, though, there was that one instant when the world around her ceased to exist, a white atomic flash.

      “Oh, my God.” The redhead’s world pieced itself back together. “My legs are shaking.”

      Weights and measures, simple arithmetic. Mackey would have made the same calculation if his and Guidry’s roles had been reversed. Mackey would have picked up the phone and made the same call that Guidry made, without question. And Guidry would have respected him for it. C’est la vie. Such was this particular life, at least.

      He flipped the redhead around, hiked up her skirt, yanked down her panties. The glass

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